Lee Jackson Is An Idiot

Huff · July 20, 2005

Today's print edition of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram had a story on Dr. Pohl leaving North Texas at the end of the 2005-06 academic year. A statement and quote from Chancellor Lee Jackson caused my jaws to clench. In the article it said ....."UNT chancellor Lee Jackson praised Pohl and wished him well but declined to say whether he would have offered Pohl an extension next month when his contract was up for renewal. "I'm not engaging in any hypotheticals" Jackson said. "It is not appropriate to be speculating about things".

I know some of you guys got really upset with Chancellor Jackson over the branding deal. That one was just one more in a long series of changes to school colors, logos, and names at North Texas over the last 35 years so it didn't bother me as much as it did some others. Hayden Fry changed from Kelly green to apple green. He changed the name of the teams from Eagles to Mean Green. He brought in a new logo - the flying worm. A few years later Fred McCain became athletic director and the Kelly green came back. We became the Eagles again. A few years later during the Hurley/Helwig years a lot of money was spent to develop new logos for the school (The term "branding" had not been invented in those days".) That is when we came up with the Forest green color, the full Eagle with extended claws, the Eagle head that was on the football field, and the star with UNT going accross and up. A few years later Rick V came in. We changed from Mean Green Eagles to simply Mean Green. We were no longer UNT we were just North Texas. The logo on the helmets changed. To the best of my knowledge none of these people surveyed fans or conducted any polls before making these changes. So, when Chancellor Jackson led the charge to change the color and logo of the school it was just one more in the continuing list of changes at the school.

In my opinion Dr. Pohl is the best thing that has happened to North Texas in a very long time. He did lots of things to involve more people in the decision making process at the school Several new buildings were constructed and some great progress was made in several academic areas. He is one of only two presidents at North Texas during my years of involvement with the school that has recognized the value of a quality athletic program to a University (Jitter Nolan was the other one). He is the only President of the school that I have seen at a football practice. When the Chancellor of The University of North Texas says that he is not willing to comment on the wisdom of offering this man a new contract it was the straw that broke this old camel's back.

Lee Jackson is an idiot.

PlummMeanGreen · July 20, 2005

Today's print edition of the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram had a story on Dr. Pohl leaving North Texas at the end of the 2005-06 academic year. A statement and quote from Chancellor Lee Jackson caused my jaws to clench. In the article it said ....."UNT chancellor Lee Jackson praised Pohl and wished him well but declined to say whether he would have offered Pohl an extension next month when his contract was up for renewal. "I'm not engaging in any hypotheticals" Jackson said. "It is not appropriate to be speculating about things".
I know some of you guys got really upset with Chancellor Jackson over the branding deal. That one was just one more in a long series of changes to school colors, logos, and names at North Texas over the last 35 years so it didn't bother me as much as it did some others. Hayden Fry changed from Kelly green to apple green. He changed the name of the teams from Eagles to Mean Green. He brought in a new logo - the flying worm. A few years later Fred McCain became athletic director and the Kelly green came back. We became the Eagles again. A few years later during the Hurley/Helwig years a lot of money was spent to develop new logos for the school (The term "branding" had not been invented in those days".) That is when we came up with the Forest green color, the full Eagle with extended claws, the Eagle head that was on the football field, and the star with UNT going accross and up. A few years later Rick V came in. We changed from Mean Green Eagles to simply Mean Green. We were no longer UNT we were just North Texas. The logo on the helmets changed. To the best of my knowledge none of these people surveyed fans or conducted any polls before making these changes. So, when Chancellor Jackson led the charge to change the color and logo of the school it was just one more in the continuing list of changes at the school.
In my opinion Dr. Pohl is the best thing that has happened to North Texas in a very long time. He did lots of things to involve more people in the decision making process at the school Several new buildings were constructed and some great progress was made in several academic areas. He is one of only two presidents at North Texas during my years of involvement with the school that has recognized the value of a quality athletic program to a University (Jitter Nolan was the other one). He is the only President of the school that I have seen at a football practice. When the Chancellor of The University of North Texas says that he is not willing to comment on the wisdom of offering this man a new contract it was the straw that broke this old camel's back.
Lee Jackson is an idiot.

WHOA!

I totally concur, Don. I don't like the vibes and the karma I have felt since the man took the chancellor's job. I am sure he is an OK person, good family man and was a good Texas legislator representing part of Dallas, but I just don't think he is "The Man" for our constituency. He took his own big personal set back when the Texas Legislature did not approve our UNT Law School for (where else?) downtown Dallas. I thought we hired him because he had connections down in Austin that would help us--not hinder us.

He made a very poor choice of words concerning Dr. Pohl with the Star-Telegram of which I am getting ready to read at lunch. Stebo posted it elsewhere, but I'll be damned if I, too, wouldn't mind a draft Norval Pohl for Chancellor movement.

His approval rating with NT professors was low because he is still trying to take this school out of the J.C. Matthews era for one and some of those old timers on campus are fightin', kicking and screeching over that as they have for the last 2 or so decades; Pohl was trying to take us out of the the "rubber stamp" every NT professor who wanted tenureship and a comfy' life "freakin" long job in Denton. We've had too many tenured in the past on the NT payroll who retired 10 years before they were actually take off the NT payroll--others were good choices for tenureship.

He has also taken some flack for being too pro-athetics. Good gosh! Look at how little had really been spent at NORTH TEXAS on football related facilities since Fouts Field opened up in 1951 (when I think you also told me your dad was a referee at some NT games during that era). Outside of the $500,000 endzone expansion (it was never $1 million as previously advertised) what did we mostly get at Fouts Field the previous 40 plus years except----new shades of green paint?

I think the NT Board of Regents need to do some checkin' on other bad PR moves made by this Chancellor and try to determine if they really might have made a mistake in hiring this man for the UNT System.

Edited July 20, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

JayDub · July 20, 2005

FLJ!

greenpie · July 20, 2005

I agree with everything!

Stan R · July 20, 2005

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!

SilverEagle · July 20, 2005

I think that it's interesting about the last pro-athletics President, Jitter Nolan. If I'm not mistaken, he's the one who hired Hayden Fry.

I'm very proud to say that Jitter Nolan's name appears on my diploma.

Jitter Nolan was hired by North Texas because of his money raising abilities. The "old nesters" didn't like him because he didn't own an advanced degree. But I suspect that the real reason that they didn't like him was because he actually had some PERSONALITY, and he was probably gaining too much influence to suit them.

I'm seeing a very distressing trend here. I don't like anything that has gone on since Lee Jackson has taken over as Chancelor (aka Chancellor of the University of North Texas....remove all the lower case letters).

I agree with Huff, that comment in the paper is absolutely the last straw.

Jackson has to go!

TIgreen01 · July 20, 2005

Reading these comments, we are given no choice but to believe that Dr. Pohl was told that at next month's regents meeting it would be recommended that he not get an extension...and subsequently was given the choice to resign to spare himself the embarrassment?

WTF?!

If this is how it went down, then you can bet the house that we're going to be seeing our AD and Head FB coach head out for greener pastures pretty quickly.

WTF is going on up in Denton?! Can LJ really be causing all this??? From connections I have not related to athletics or logogate, I'm hearing that LJ is making life difficult on several others in NT leadership that I, personally, have much respect for. Granted this sounds like one big giant conspiracy theory, but I have a hard time believing that anyone who had just started the largest capital campaign in a University's history would leave before he got to see the fruits of his labor.

Edited July 20, 2005 by TIgreen01

PlummMeanGreen · July 20, 2005

On a much smaller scale, I recently worked for a school for 6 1/2 years that was purchased by some investors in California. I started floating my resume' immediately because I've seen this song sung before; that is, when a new group comes in they are either angelicly tolerant or hostile.

Well, the school corporation I had worked for all those years became part of a hostile take-over and all the new officials from California started throwing their newfound weight around and started trying to fix things that were absolutely not broken to make an impression. I call it "wee-wee'in" their territory.

I was the first who bailed months ago getting another job at a tech school I had worked previously, but about 30 of my other former collegues in the DFW part of this tech school corporation stuck around and have been fired or re-assigned to lesser positions. Now some of the lawyers will get rich because lawsuits have been filed left and right by some who got kicked out are kicked down. They probably don't have a case when all the fallout clears because this is the way much business in America is done, unfortunately.

I think Dr. Pohl was at the right place at the wrong time when Lee Jackson came aboard and I think LJ has very subtlely created a hostile take-over at the main campus in Denton. He is a former politician and most all their dirty work is done under the table and/or behind closed doors. Don't know how that will ever succeed in the academic setting long-term.

This thing with Dr. Pohl has probably been on Jackson's agenda since he began his job as Chancellor (or soon after) is my guess. It's all very unfortunate and we probably haven't heard the last of all this yet. The unfortunate part in this is if all this festors to a boiling point that becomes public, it could discourage a Big Donor to give toward a facility that will do more for NT than many on our alma mater's campus seem to have a vision to comprehend.

Edited July 20, 2005 by PlummMeanGreen

shaneb · July 20, 2005

I agree with a LOT of what Pohl did. He was always fair to me and he was always personable. He did great things for the "feeling" of the university, for the amount of students who live on campus and for the spirit of the student body.

BUT the backlash that he took from the faculty was well deserved after the tenure issues.

Most of the professors who were not affected were dissapointed NOT with the decision to deny tenure... but Pohl's underhanded way of handling it and delaying the hearings, the results and the FOI requests.

He wanted to show his support for a new Provost (who in my opinion isnt worth the airfare it cost us to fly him here) and thats why he drug his feet.

I wish that Lee Jackson would be shown the door... but the provost better go with him.

ShaneB

GrayEagle · July 20, 2005

I totally concur, Don. I don't like the vibes and the karma I have felt since the man took the chancellor's job. I am sure he is an OK person, good family man and was a good Texas legislator representing part of Dallas, but I just don't think he is "The Man" for our constituency. He took his own big personal set back when the Texas Legislature did not approve our UNT Law School for (where else?) downtown Dallas. I thought we hired him because he had connections down in Austin that would help us--not hinder us.
He made a very poor choice of words concerning Dr. Pohl with the Star-Telegram of which I am getting ready to read at lunch. Stebo posted it elsewhere, but I'll be damned if I, too, wouldn't mind a draft Norval Pohl for Chancellor movement.
His approval rating with NT professors was low because he is still trying to take this school out of the J.C. Matthews era for one and some of those old timers on campus are fightin', kicking and screeching over that as they have for the last 2 or so decades; Pohl was trying to take us out of the the "rubber stamp" every NT professor who wanted tenureship and a comfy' life "freakin" long job in Denton. We've had too many tenured in the past on the NT payroll who retired 10 years before they were actually take off the NT payroll--others were good choices for tenureship.
He has also taken some flack for being too pro-athetics. Good gosh! Look at how little had really been spent at NORTH TEXAS on football related facilities since Fouts Field opened up in 1951 (when I think you also told me your dad was a referee at some NT games during that era). Outside of the $500,000 endzone expansion (it was never $1 million as previously advertised) what did we mostly get at Fouts Field the previous 40 plus years except----new shades of green paint?
I think the NT Board of Regents need to do some checkin' on other bad PR moves made by this Chancellor and try to determine if they really might have made a mistake in hiring this man for the UNT System.

First, let me preface any remarks by saying that I definitely do not like what I'm hearing (on and off of the board) about Lee Jackson. I side with you and Don regarding the need for a change at chancellor.

I do think that we need a chancellor because one person cannot administer his own campus and do justice to the other campuses at the same time. As I see it, the chancellor should plan for the advancement of ALL campuses, with emphasis on the new ones; especially any that are centers and not full-blown campuses. He should also see that the funding is obtained to carry out these projects.

Lee Jackson could be an effective leader in accomplishing this but he hasn't been because he tends to micromanage in areas where he should have little concern.

I also think that the chancellor should be courting other colleges to become a part of the North Texas system. Primarily, I'm thinking of Midwestern State, TWU, and possibly Stephen F. Austin. The reason? Because those three, to the best of my knowledge, were shut out of building funds in the current legislative session. Only 'system' schools received funding.

I also wanted to enlighten about some distorted facts.

Carl Matthews wasn't as anti-sports as you would think. Joe McConnell, the president before Matthews, not only established us as a university and under him we advanced from 'small' college to 'major' college, the forerunner to Division I. Matthews could have killed our fledgling major program at that point had he chosen to do so. Instead, he allowed Emmit Cambron, our AD, to pursue admission to the Missouri Valley Conference, which we gained. Carl Matthews didn't care for football but he was a huge basketball fan (note the fine coliseum that we have). So, while he did little toward making us a true university at that time (he wanted the nation's best teachers college), he also didn't squelch our athletic program, except for underfunding. Anyway, we stayed Division I under his presidency.

Now, to Lee Jackson. Lee is a Dukie. His biggest sports interest is still Duke basketball (unless he has recently changed). That's probably where he got his elitist attitude in the first place. His parents, however, both attended North Texas. They were of my era but I didn't know them. His dad was very active in college affairs. He did get a master's degree from SMU but that's not where he developed his 'attitude' as I understand it. Not that some SMUers are not full of themselves but most, or at least many, are not.

Another misleading statement is that Jackson failed to get us a law school. Well, yes and no. True, we don't have a law school yet but that is not Jackson's fault. The law school was not turned down, except maybe by the speaker of the house, who didn't submit it for a vote. All that after 22 sponsors of the bill had been lined up.

My point is that he'll have enough rope to hang himself without misguiding our board about the facts of the case.

Other than those, keep up the good work. I would applaud a 'Draft Norval for Chancellor' campaign but I doubt that he would accept, even if you were successful. It sure would be poetic justice if he would though, wouldn't it?

Got5onIt · July 20, 2005

I can't help but begin to worry about LJ and the potential puppet president to be. Let's hope this new guy understands athletics is the face of the university.

Stan R · July 20, 2005

Let's not forget that LJ has to also deal with UNT Health Science Center. No small task in my opinion. Not that that changes anything but people were looking for reasons why we wouldn't need a chancellor. Add to the fact that we may eventually have a law school and I think you could justify needing a chancellor. Maybe not the one we have but one nonetheless.

Eagle-96 · July 20, 2005

I agree with a LOT of what Pohl did. He was always fair to me and he was always personable. He did great things for the "feeling" of the university, for the amount of students who live on campus and for the spirit of the student body.
BUT the backlash that he took from the faculty was well deserved after the tenure issues.
Most of the professors who were not affected were dissapointed NOT with the decision to deny tenure... but Pohl's underhanded way of handling it and delaying the hearings, the results and the FOI requests.
He wanted to show his support for a new Provost (who in my opinion isnt worth the airfare it cost us to fly him here) and thats why he drug his feet.
I wish that Lee Jackson would be shown the door... but the provost better go with him.
ShaneB

I think that Pohl's mistake was backing Howard Johnson on this one. Howard dropped the ball in many areas and Pohl went to bat for him which, IMHO, was a mistake. I hope that Pohl is not a sacraficial lamb in all of this. If anyone should go, it should be Johnson. He has tarnished the good name of NT enough.

DallasGreen · July 20, 2005

Isn't UT in the market for a new president? That would truly be justice served if it were to be Norval Pohl. UT would get the gold mine and UNT would once again get the shaft.

NT80 · July 20, 2005

I think that Pohl's mistake was backing Howard Johnson on this one. Howard dropped the ball in many areas and Pohl went to bat for him which, IMHO, was a mistake. I hope that Pohl is not a sacraficial lamb in all of this. If anyone should go, it should be Johnson. He has tarnished the good name of NT enough.

From all I've seen and read, Howard Johnson and Lee Jackson are both suspects in the recent but different outrages at NT. I hold the BOR accountable for these messes in hiring as they are the ones that approved them both. I applaud the BOR for their Athletics support but am concerned at their hiring skills.

GMoney · July 20, 2005

I refrain from completely giving my feelings on LJ, but I had one person tell me today what he believes LJ is doing. He put it this way..."LJ is treating the university as he did his court room. He has to have complete control of everyone and everything in it." There is no doubt he will give his input for a yes man just like he bullied those around him regarding the branding issue.

Eagle-96 · July 20, 2005

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_...520590#continue

This quote from the article tells you all you need to know about Howard Johnson and what may have happened to Pohl:

"If Pohl supports Johnson's original decisions, the faculty will explode. But if Pohl goes against Johnson-goes against the provost he hired-he casts a devastating vote of no confidence."

Edited July 20, 2005 by Eagle-96

FirefightnRick · July 20, 2005

I think this is an appropriate thread to say it, and you know I have to say it:

I TOLD YOU SO!

Rick

Edited July 20, 2005 by FirefightnRick

PlummMeanGreen · July 20, 2005

I refrain from completely giving my feelings on LJ, but I had one person tell me today what he believes LJ is doing. He put it this way..."LJ is treating the university as he did his court room. He has to have complete control of everyone and everything in it." There is no doubt he will give his input for a yes man just like he bullied those around him regarding the branding issue.

I believe a few of us on this board may have been at one of LJ's first public appearances when he showed up for the now infamous Denia Neighborhood Pow Wow at the Gateway Center 2 or so years ago the same night we hosted TCU in the Super Pit.

You can tell a whole lot about some by simply observing their body language and facial responses and I have to say that in the case of Lee Jackson and at that particular meeting, I could read neither. Wouldn't want to play poker with that man in other words. I guess the "no facial expression" comes from his days as a judge.

I am sorry we are having this happen to all of us because we had such momentum going up there.